Ancient Myths and Avian Pestilence

hese birds are the size of a crane and are like the ibis, but their beaks are more powerful, and not crooked like the ibis, " wrote ancient Hellene traveler and writer, Pausanias (1). He was referring to large flocks of metal-clawed ornithes, which according to legend, roosted in the dense marshes around Lake Stymphalis in Arcadia, ravaging crops and the livelihood of neighboring villages (2). This scourge, he speculated, was not local. " The Arabian Desert breeds, among other wild creatures, birds…which are quite as savage against men as lions or leopards…. These fly against those who come to hunt them, wounding and killing them with their beaks " (1). The flesh-eating predators further terrorized local inhabitants by dispatching against them razor-edged feathers like arrows. " All armor of bronze or iron that men wear is pierced by the birds, " elaborated Pausanias (1). Pets of Ares, god of war, these birds were a public menace too great for the community to control, a challenge finally assigned, along with other " labors, " to strongman of all time, Herakles. Son of Zeus and mortal Alcmene, Herakles might have enjoyed the privileged life of a demigod. But, victimized by Zeus' jealous wife, Hera, he endured a mortal lot of labor and hardship, punctuated by periods of madness and aberrant behavior. Strong, resourceful, and gifted with magical defenses, he had to struggle, nonetheless, against nature that was deadly, unpredictable, and arbitrary. During his celebrated labors, he battled vicious beasts (among them Kerberos, the guard of Hades) and cleaned out the infamous Augean Stables, which housed the filthiest herd of cattle in Hellas. To attain immortality, he performed , as penance for his misdeeds, arduous service to the community, using his unparalleled strength to support his fellow humans. The thick marsh habitat of the Stymphalian birds worked against Herakles. His bow and arrows failed, for he could neither see nor reach the birds through the dense vegetation. Only asked to drive them away, he abandoned efforts to eliminate the birds; instead, he conned them into leaving the area on their own. With a pair of krotala (metal rattles) made by Hephaestus, god of the forge, Herakles frightened the birds out of their refuge and chased them as they flew east to the Isle of Ares in the Black Sea. The detail on this month's cover comes from a black-figured amphora, a ceramic …